Is
Apple really trying to safeguard freedom and individual rights, or just
pandering to its Leftist anti-American, pro-jihad base?
“Apple Unlocked iPhones for the Feds 70 Times Before,” by Shane Harris, The Daily Beast, February 17, 2016:

A 2015 court case shows that the tech giant has been
willing to play ball with the government before—and is only stopping now
because it might ‘tarnish the Apple brand.’
Apple CEO Tim Cook declared on Wednesday that his company wouldn’t
comply with a government search warrant to unlock an iPhone used by one
of the San Bernardino killers, a significant escalation in a
long-running debate between technology companies and the government over
access to people’s electronically-stored private information.
But in a similar case in New York last year, Apple acknowledged that
it could extract such data if it wanted to. And according to prosecutors
in that case, Apple has unlocked phones for authorities at least 70
times since 2008. (Apple doesn’t dispute this figure.)
In other words, Apple’s stance in the San Bernardino case may not be
quite the principled defense that Cook claims it is. In fact, it may
have as much to do with public relations as it does with warding off
what Cook called “an unprecedented step which threatens the security of
our customers.”
For its part, the government’s public position isn’t clear cut,
either. U.S. officials insist that they cannot get past a security
feature on the shooter’s iPhone that locks out anyone who doesn’t know
its unique password—which even Apple doesn’t have. But in that New York
case, a government attorney acknowledged that one U.S. law enforcement
agency has already developed the technology to crack at least some
iPhones, without the assistance from Apple that officials are demanding
now.
The facts in the New York case, which involve a self-confessed
methamphetamine dealer and not a notorious terrorist, tend to undermine
some of the core claims being made by both Apple and the government in a
dispute with profound implications for privacy and criminal
investigations beyond the San Bernardino.
In New York, as in California, Apple is refusing to bypass the passcode feature now found on many iPhones.
But in a legal brief, Apple acknowledged that the phone in the meth
case was running version 7 of the iPhone operating system, which means
the company can access it. “For these devices, Apple has the technical
ability to extract certain categories of unencrypted data from a
passcode locked iOS device,” the company said in a court brief.
Whether the extraction would be successful depended on whether the
phone was “in good working order,” Apple said, noting that the company
hadn’t inspected the phone yet. But as a general matter, yes, Apple
could crack the iPhone for the government. And, two technical experts
told The Daily Beast, the company could do so with the phone used by
deceased San Bernardino shooter, Syed Rizwan Farook, a model 5C. It was
running version 9 of the operating system.
Still, Apple argued in the New York case, it shouldn’t have to,
because “forcing Apple to extract data…absent clear legal authority to
do so, could threaten the trust between Apple and its customers and
substantially tarnish the Apple brand,” the company said, putting forth
an argument that didn’t explain why it was willing to comply with court
orders in other cases.
“This reputational harm could have a longer term economic impact
beyond the mere cost of performing the single extraction at issue,”
Apple said.
Apple’s argument in New York struck one former NSA lawyer as a
telling admission: that its business reputation is now an essential
factor in deciding whether to hand over customer information.
“I think Apple did itself a huge disservice,” Susan Hennessey, who
was an attorney in the Office of the General Counsel at the NSA, told
The Daily Beast. The company acknowledged that it had the technical
capacity to unlock the phone, but “objected anyway on reputational
grounds,” Hennessey said. Its arguments were at odds with each other,
especially in light of Apple’s previous compliance with so many court
orders.
It wasn’t until after the revelations of former-NSA contractor Edward
Snowden did Apple begin to position itself so forcefully as a guardian
of privacy protection in the face of a vast government surveillance
apparatus. Perhaps Apple was taken aback by the scale of NSA spying that
Snowden revealed. Or perhaps it was embarassed by its own role in it.
The company, since 2012, had been providing its customers’ information
to the FBI and the NSA via the so-called PRISM program, which operated
pursuant to court orders.
Apple has also argued, then and now, that the government is
overstepping the authority of the All Writs Act, an 18th Century statute
that it claims forces Apple to conduct court-ordered iPhone searches.
That’s where the “clear legal authority” question comes into play.
But that, too, is a subjective question which will have to be decided
by higher courts. For now, Apple is resisting the government on
multiple grounds, and putting its reputation as a bastion of consumer
protection front and center in the fight….